


Return Visit(s)

by extension_cord



Category: The Transformers (IDW Generation One)
Genre: Angst, Gen, I attempted to write fluff and this happened instead, M/M, Massage, implied prostitution
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-11-02
Updated: 2013-11-02
Packaged: 2017-12-31 07:33:58
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,019
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1028984
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/extension_cord/pseuds/extension_cord
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>MTMTE, Pre-war: Ratchet has already saved Drift's life once. Drift wants to repay him; Ratchet insists that a simple thank-you will suffice.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Return Visit(s)

**Author's Note:**

  * For [homosindisguise](https://archiveofourown.org/users/homosindisguise/gifts).



> Getting this out of my system.
> 
> Disclaimer — nothing recognizable belongs to me.
> 
> Enjoy!

* * *

"You're back."

"Well, yeah —"

" _Why_ are you back? How did you even _find_ your way back?"

It was strange, almost disarming, to face the same 'bot Ratchet had seen a handful of months earlier. This time, Drift was cognizant, or at least he wasn't nearly as delirious as he'd been then, back when he'd been drugged out and on the very brink of death. "I had to ask around. Is that a problem? Is it a problem that I've come back to _thank_ you?"

Ratchet rolled his optics, and attempted to resume — what _had_ he been doing, before Drift had shown up at the door to his Dead End medibay? His train of thought completely derailed, the medic instead busied himself by rummaging loudly through drawer after drawer of tools and utensils, searching for —

"Doctor."

Much to Ratchet's annoyance, the clamor hadn't driven his former patient away. Finally, "Look, kid, you don't have to thank me. Helping people is what I do."

"And do you like it?"

The medic huffed. "Of course. As I said, it's _what I —_ "

"Do people _thank_ you for it? They should." When Ratchet looked up again, Drift was much nearer: near enough for the medic to see all the scrapes and scuffs on his armor; near enough to recognize the grime of dried energon that was caked to his frame.

"I treated you — what, two months ago? You're already a mess."

"It happens." Drift's tone was oddly casual, almost businesslike.

Ratchet felt his faceplates soften. It was a sad truth: life in the Dead End had the tendency to wear a 'bot down in a short span of time. All too often he had seen the same patients return, each visit looking worse than their last. "Oh, alright. Your gratitude is accepted."

"But —"

"Is there anything else I can do for you?"

Drift frowned, his yellow optics dimming slightly. "I wanted to repay you."

And Ratchet knew, right then, how Drift had intended this meeting to go. "Nope. Here's what you _will_ do. You will lay down on that medical slab over there and let me check you over and clean you up. And then you will leave, and you will _find a job,_ and you will get the hell out of Rodion. Sound good?"

"Yeah, sure." It wasn't a very satisfying response. Drift trudged across the small medibay, took a seat on the nearest slab, and then reclined, optics not once leaving Ratchet. "Do you ever rest?"

"Sure," was the response, but it was mostly a lie. Ratchet was always on-duty — by choice, of course — and between running his Dead End medibay in Rodion and his official occupation of treating higher-ups in the Senate, relaxation wasn't much of a reality. Ratchet liked it that way.

For a while, Drift said nothing. He watched Ratchet fuss over him, scouring away the grime from his armor, digging the dried fluids out from beneath plating and transformation seams. The medic worked his way down Drift's body, mouth set in a grim line, optics narrowed. At last, Drift murmured, "You disapprove of what I do."

It wasn't a question, and Ratchet glanced up from the sullied pelvic plating. " _Obviously_. Kid, you weren't forged to be living in the gutters, and you _certainly_ weren't forged to be selling your body like this."

"Yeah, well. It keeps me alive."

* * *

A month passed. 

Ratchet was sanding down a fresh weld on the shoulder of a currently-offline 'bot when the door to his medibay chimed, signaling the arrival of a visitor. "Just hold on," he called in the general direction of the entrance, "and I'll be right with you." The medic sanded over the soldered plate again, tested it for smoothness with the swipe of a hand, and deemed the repair sufficient. After plugging a new fuel line into an open panel in the 'bot's forearm, Ratchet switched off the overhead lights and turned to the door.

Drift.

He looked bad, certainly worse than he'd been a month earlier. An optic fizzled in and out of operation — his armor was rent and dented and scuffed — a sporadic rattle issued from one of his vents. "Hello, Doctor."

"Medical slab. Now."

Drift complied, heaving himself onto the cold surface, arms lying limply at his sides. "You don't — you don't have more serious stuff to attend to, first? Other patients?"

"No." Ratchet fetched a cart loaded with medical supplies and wheeled it to the slab where Drift had reclined. "What the frag happened to you, kid? You look like you've gone to the Pit and back."

There was a cough of static. "Last client was — he was a little more than I could handle."

"Dammit, Drift."

"It's mostly superficial damage," Drift murmured, but then pointed at his glitching left optic. "This, though. I need help with this."

" _Superficial —_ for Pit's sake, kid, what d'you let them _do_ to you?!"

Drift glanced away. "Whatever they're willing to pay for."

It was the answer that Ratchet had expected; nevertheless, the confirmation of his worst fears made the medic's fuel tank burn with a mingling of anger and something else that he didn't really want to acknowledge. For a while, he worked in silence, first retracting the microfilament mesh on his patient's left optic. Nanotools unfurled from Ratchet's forged medic fingers, scanning the optical sensor — locating the damaged component — isolating the injured wire and, ever-so-carefully, snipping it away. The yellow optic went dark; Drift grunted at the temporary loss of half his vision.

"You're good."

"I'm not finished yet."

"I know," was the calm reply, "but the observation stands. Your hands —"

"Yeah, yeah, I get that all the time." Ratchet dug through the equipment on his cart, finally locating a spool of cable with a ridiculously thin gauge — optical wire, delicate and easily damaged. A tiny segment was cut, and moments later his nanotools were back inside the injured optic. The wire was soldered into place — optical relays were rebooted — with a flicker, Drift's full eyesight returned.

"You're _really_ good."

* * *

When Drift reappeared at the entrance to Ratchet's Dead End medibay nearly two months later, he didn't bother pausing to catch the medic's attention. Wordlessly, he crossed the dimly-lit room, settled on the nearest slab, shuttered his optics, and waited. Once again, his white armor was scraped and dented — the finials on his helm were bent — and, most notably, there was the telltale scorch of a laserblast on his chest. 

Ratchet took in the pitiful sight before him and sighed. "You're back."

"I am," said Drift, not onlining his optics.

There was a momentary hesitation, then at last, Ratchet said, "Kid, I don't know what to tell you. You come here, I fix you up and send you on your way, and within an hour you're back in the gutters again sucking spike and doing who _knows_ what else for shanix. I can't be your personal medic, shining you up between tricks. I just _can't_."

Drift's yellow optics flickered back on. "I know."

"Every person who comes through here — I'm invested in _every single one_ of them. When they walk out that door, I _worry_ about them." Ratchet paused, fixed Drift with a pointed stare, and added, his voice suddenly much quieter, "And I worry about _you_ , kid. I worry that there'll come a day when your sorry aft _won't_ show up at my door, and not because you found a _legitimate_ job and escaped this hellhole."

His patient frowned, but didn't look away. "It's a hard cycle to break out of. Doing — doing horrible things for money — _if_ you get paid in the first place — and not knowing whether to spend that money on food or circuit boosters. Because the circuit boosters, Doc? They take you _away_ from it all, if only just for a while."

"And they almost _killed_ you."

"And if they had, so what? I'd be one less patient for you to worry about."

"That's not the way it works," Ratchet growled. Unconsciously, he'd already started to attend to Drift, injecting a tube of microrepair nanites into the blast mark on his patient's breastplate. "I shouldn't even _be_ here — in Rodion, I mean, operating on folks like you."

"What do you mean?"

"This entire setup is under-the-table," Ratchet explained, now dragging a scouring pad laced with disinfectant over the wound. "This isn't my _real_ job. Officially, I treat Primes and senators and all the higher-ups in the government —"

Drift snorted. "Some good _they_ do."

"— but I'd rather be _here_. I understand your frustration, kid." Ratchet set the scouring pad aside and was about to reach for another tool from his cart, when black digits seized his hand. He stared at his patient. "Drift. Let go."

But Drift's grip only tightened, fingers weaving between Ratchet's. "You don't relax. You _said_ you do, but you don't. Not when you run this place _and_ look after the senators in Iacon."

"So what? It makes me happy."

"Give me your other hand."

Ratchet blinked — but before he could send a command to do otherwise, his left hand joined his right, firmly within Drift's warm grasp. Black digits ran over red, thumbs massaging circles into joints and seams. The touch was slow and gentle, and Ratchet felt his shoulders sink, slightly, felt the tension fade from taught neck cabling. "Drift —"

"Your hands are extraordinary."

"They're medic hands, kid, which means —"

"They're sensitive?" The corner of Drift's mouth ticked upward, and for the first time, Ratchet saw his patient _smile_. "You put them through a lot of work, taking care of others, but you don't take care of _yourself_. Aren't you afraid that someday, you'll wear them out?"

"Not particularly," Ratchet huffed, "and to be quite frank, kid, _you_ aren't exactly the poster child for _self-care_." There was no reply, and so Ratchet watched with rapt attention as Drift caressed his knuckles, his wrists, his palms. Black digits slid between his, entwining with them, systematically massaging each finger before moving on to the next. Ratchet sighed. "That feels good."

"I'm glad," said Drift.

"Yeah." Unspoken, though, was the fact that the sensory stimuli to his hands was _very much_ causing Ratchet's frame to rapidly heat. At that moment, with a soft _click_ , his cooling fans switched on. The sound caught Drift's attention, and his smile widened.

"How long has it been, Doc?"

"Kid, this is not the time nor place." Ratchet shuttered his optics, and the sight of Drift's triumphantly smug smirk was replaced simply with the blissful sensation of fingers moving against his own. "This is fine. Unprofessional, but fine."

"If you say so. But if you're the _top medic_ —"

"Chief Medical Officer."

"Right," said Drift, "so who takes care of _you?_ "

Ratchet ignored the question. "Things are happening, kid. I'm sure you've noticed. There's a movement that's gaining popularity, and it's making the Senate nervous."

"Decepticons." For a split second, Drift's massaging stilled — and then, slowly, he resumed. "Yeah, I've heard of them. Seen a few."

Ratchet flicked his optics back on, and his gaze met that of his still-reclined patient. "It may be nothing — they may not pose any sort of threat. But I kind of doubt that. The Senate's concerned. And — well, heads up, Drift — I might not be here, the next time you stop by, _if_ you stop by."

"Why's that?"

"Because I've got a feeling that I'll be trying to save the lives of soldiers pretty damn soon."

Drift frowned, then gave Ratchet's hands one final squeeze before pulling away. "Maybe it's time — you know, for change. The Senate's forgotten about me and every single person trying to survive down here. They don't care, and they don't pretend to, either."

"Perhaps," said Ratchet. He straightened himself out, then turned his attention back to his cart of medical supplies. "Let me check over the rest of your systems and hammer out a few dents. When we're done here, you're going to do something with your life, got it? Make me — and every other person living down here — make us proud."

"I'll try," Drift said, and this time, Ratchet swore that he meant it.

* * *

_fin._

**Author's Note:**

> Thanks for reading!


End file.
